Failsafe
by Inksaber
Summary: Under the influence of Loki's scepter, Clint is willing to tell him everything and anything. Then Loki asks him about his children and Clint's perfect, obedient world cracks a little.


**I've had this fic in mind since I first saw Age of Ultron. Not gonna lie, this movie has been really great for my inspiration.**

* * *

Clint's mind is crystal clear, for the first time in his entire life.

The world is a beautiful, sickly blur of over-saturated colours and there's a voice in his head that's not his, but he's not worried, because the scepter has opened his eyes and his mind and he is- he is-

Obedient.

That's the core of his being now. Loki needs help, and so Clint will give it to him.

Loki has established an underground base, filled with the enemies of SHIELD. It's a bustling den of workers, most of them scientists. Clint thinks he may have shot at the soldier standing guard at the door once upon a time, but that doesn't matter anymore. Here, they are all on the same team, united by Loki's vision for the world.

Loki himself is sitting cross-legged on the sandy floor with his scepter lying across his lap, seemingly meditating. It's an odd sight among the commotion of the room, but Clint is not here to question his leader. His job is to stand a short distance away, as he has been commanded to and wait to be needed.

Loki's eyes fly open and he flinches away from something unseen. Clint only glimpses the expression of fear on his face for a second before it fades away, replaced by determination. Loki inhales deeply, gripping his scepter.

"Agent Barton," he says, without looking at Clint and Clint steps forward.

"Sir?"

Loki gets to his feet, surveying the progress of his followers. He takes another deep breath, then turns to Clint.

"I want you to tell me everything you know about this team Fury is putting together," he says. "I mean to rule the earth, and to do that, I will need to know my enemy."

Clint doesn't know a lot about Rogers and even less about Banner, but Stark's life has been in the newspapers since he was four and he knows a little too much about Romanoff. As far as tasks go, this should be pretty easy.

"Yes, sir," he says, and launches into Avengers Initiative 101.

He tells Loki about the incident that turned Banner into the Hulk, how he's got anger management issues that act like a trigger for the beast within. (Loki's eyes gleam at this, but Clint doesn't ask. He doesn't need to know what Loki is thinking.)

Next is Captain America, the man out of time with enhanced strength and post traumatic stress disorder. Clint knows Fury was worried that Rogers wasn't adjusting too well to the future, that despite his enhanced abilities, he would be a liability on the team. Clint is pretty sure that once Rogers gets out into the real world, he'll be fine, and he mentions this to Loki, who nods and gestures for him to keep going.

If you wanted to know a lot about Tony Stark, you could just Google him, but Loki doesn't even know what that means, and so Clint gives him the abbreviated version instead- son of a genius, raised in the spotlight, spent most of his adult years building weapons until he was kidnapped by a terrorist group, then turned his life around and made himself a weapon instead. If you were to look up "self obsessed" in the dictionary, you'd probably find a picture of Tony Stark's face beside it. From what Clint has heard, he's kind of an asshole.

"And he calls himself a hero," says Loki. "Humans can be so blind to reality. Who else?"

Clint hesitates. He doesn't know why.

Now Loki's full attention is on him, and he looks like a cat who just caught a mouse. "Who else, Agent Barton?" he asks softly, gripping the scepter. Clint straightens up.

"Black Widow," he says. "Assassin, SHIELD agent, spy. She's been in the business since she was just a kid. You won't find many better at our job than her."

He tells Loki everything he knows about Natasha Romanoff's bloodstained past, weaknesses and her fears and oddly enough, his over-saturated world becomes tinged with a hint of guilt.

Loki is pleased. The guilt is unnecessary. What is going on?

 _Obedience_ , whispers the scepter in his mind, and the guilt vanishes.

"Who was Agent Romanoff to you?" asks Loki when he's finished telling the Black Widow's story.

Clint considers this. "We were a team," he says. "One of SHIELD's best. She was... a good friend."

Somehow, that term feels insignificant, but his mind isn't offering him any better phrases. The clarity the scepter gave him wiped away all attachments to his previous life.

"A friend," Loki repeats. "Nothing more?"

"Nah, not Natasha," says Clint, and he feels almost as though he could smile. "What a disaster that would have been."

Loki's eyes flash and his gaze turns calculating. "Oh," he says, "but there is _someone_. Now, what about you, Agent Barton. Who is the woman who has captured your heart?"

The sickly beautiful colours give way briefly to a warm smile and dark hair and an overwhelming sense of _contentment_ before he snaps back to himself.

"Her name is Laura," he says, and this feels- it's-

 _Wrong._

He shouldn't have said that. Why did he say that?

The scepter glows bright and obedience settles in his mind once more.

"Go on," says Loki, and the words keep coming.

"Laura is different. She's good, pure. Comes from a normal background. My family is about the only thing in my life that I haven't messed up yet. If I didn't have them, I probably would have quit my job a long time ago. She... keeps me sane."

Loki seems to find this amusing. "Does she now," he says with a smirk. "You mentioned family. Tell me about your children."

And with that sentence, Clint's perfect, obedient world cracks a little.

Cooper. Lila. Cooper is seven and Lila is three and Clint is prepared to go to the ends of the earth to keep them hidden and safe. Nobody can ever know about them and Clint will sacrifice everything to make sure nobody ever will. He opens his mouth to tell Loki this.

"No," he says instead.

The scepter flares in his head, enraged. The world is no longer beautiful, but a terrifying blend of colours that makes his head ache.

 _Obedience,_ the scepter snarls in his mind, but no, he _can't_ follow this order.

Just as he knows his own name, he knows his children have to stay safe, and so Loki cannot know anything about them.

The god takes a slow step closer and Clint stares up at him.

"Your children, Agent Barton," says Loki, and this time Clint shakes his head.

"That's classified, sir. Sorry."

A smile crosses Loki's face. "But isn't this interesting," he breathes. "You tell me state secrets without batting an eye, but it is your _children_ who you refuse to betray. A father's love-" and here his smile turns bitter- "is truly a remarkable thing."

Clint only has time to blink before the scepter's point is pressed against his heart. He doesn't move, he just stares at Loki, who's looking suddenly murderous. If he's going to kill him, then Clint will not resist.

"You say it is your wife that keeps you sane," Loki whispers, "but right now, Agent Barton, it is I who holds your sanity by a thread." He pushes the scepter forward and Clint can feel it as the magic travels through his veins, up into his mind. Suddenly, he's hit with a bout of dizziness so strong he can't stay upright. He collapses to his knees, trying to brace himself with his hands.

"You would defy me? After all I have done to expand your mind?"

Somewhere in the crazily spinning room, the scepter glows and then dizziness is the last thing Clint has to worry about.

At SHIELD, they taught him about insanity. It's a side effect of torture, which is sometimes a side effect of his line of work. The term "losing your mind" was used, but he could never have imagined how accurate it was.

He's certainly losing _something,_ his mind feels ready to fly apart into a million little pieces. Reality is slipping away from him like sand through his fingers and his only remaining tether to the world is his heart pounding in his chest. Dimly, Clint is aware that he's shaking.

He's felt fear before. But this is ice-cold terror stealing through his chest and choking out his breath and it's rendered him paralysed.

 _Obedience,_ whispers the scepter in his fractured mind. _Obey. Obey. Obey._

"If I were to tell you to kill Fury's team," Loki begins, and it's almost funny how calm he sounds as Clint hangs over the edge of madness. "Would you do it?"

It takes effort to remember how to form words, but when he manages to say, "When would you like it done?" the madness recedes a little. Clint inhales a ragged breath.

"You would kill Romanoff for me?"

There's no room for hesitation when your world is caving in on itself. "Yes, sir."

The madness creeps around the edges of his mind now, taunting him. The dizziness is gone, and so he glances up at Loki, who's staring down at him thoughtfully.

"And if I asked you to go home and strike down your family?"

The sickly colours of the world make him almost nauseous.

 _Obedience,_ hisses the scepter. _Loyalty. Compliance._

Yes. He will obey. He has to.

Two children. A boy and a girl. Trusting eyes, wide smiles and _no,_ he _can't._

"Not them," gasps out Clint. "Never them. Never."

And as abruptly as it came on, the creeping insanity disappears. The clarity floods back into his mind, the icy fear melts away the paralysis, and the over-saturated world is once again beautiful.

Loki has been testing him. Has he passed, or failed?

He finds that it doesn't matter. Somewhere deep within him, Clint feels a sense of pride and relief. He's done a good thing, even if he doesn't know what that good thing is.

"Curious," says Loki, with an air of disappointment. "I have your loyalty, but it appears that I must share it with your family." He turns away from Clint, studying the scepter. "I would kill you now, but I do still have use for you. We must deal with Fury's new team."

Clint gets to his feet and squares his shoulder. The test is over. He has a job to do.

"What are my orders?"

* * *

"That was your fail-safe."

The sickly colours have drained from his vision, the alien invasion has been defeated and Loki is safely imprisoned, but Clint is too exhausted to care. He glances at Natasha, who's sitting on her bed in the motel room they've rented for the night. SHIELD has let them off the radar for the time being, but Clint isn't ready to face his family just yet, and so for now, it's just Natasha and him, like it has been on so many missions.

It's nice to have the familiarity, when his universe has never felt more shattered.

"Fail-safe," he repeats, sitting up on his own bed.

"Erik Selvig had a fail-safe put into that portal, to shut it down," says Natasha. "He was resisting the mind control and he didn't even know it."

"Yeah," Clint says. "And what was my fail-safe? You know what I did, Nat. I killed people, shot Fury. I told Loki everything, about everyone. Seems to me like I was a pretty obedient sidekick."

Natasha swings her feet off the bed and faces him, fixing him with an intense look. "You didn't tell him about Lila and Cooper," she says. "Clint, you defied him right to his face to protect your kids. Your fail-safe was your loyalty to your family."

And Clint... hadn't even thought of that.

He remembers being unmade, remembers collapsing to the ground as Loki threatened him with insanity. He doesn't think he'll ever forget that terrible feeling. But there was something in him that even the scepter couldn't unmake, and that was his love for his children.

 _Not them. Never them. Never._

Maybe he will be able to look Laura in the eye when he goes home after all.

"Guess you're right," he admits and Natasha looks satisfied.

"Of course I am," she says, because she's Natasha and playing the know-it-all is one of her favourite things to do. "Oh, and I talked to Laura earlier. She says come home whenever you're ready."

Clint relaxes a little, feeling immeasurably grateful that he has a wife who understands. His job is difficult, but it's made easier knowing that he has something worth going home to.

"You wanna come back with me?" he asks. "I bet the kids would love to see you, it's been a while." Natasha has yet to turn down an opportunity to see Lila and Cooper. She may be a master assassin, but she has a weakness for small children.

Sure enough, Natasha nods. "I've got nowhere else to be," she replies and Clint smiles wearily, exhaustion weighing down his bones.

He doesn't want to sleep yet, afraid he'll dream of an over-saturated world and a glowing blue scepter, but maybe he'll rest easier knowing that no matter where Loki is in the universe, Clint's done his job as a father. His children are safe.

His fail-safe wasn't as useful as Eric Selvig's, but he protected the people he cares about most in the world, and maybe that can be enough for him.

* * *

 **If you liked it, let me know. :)**


End file.
